Cottage
by witchfingers
Summary: He was making a cottage in the middle of the forest...  Jesse x James, AU-ish
1. cut back

_I don't own anything of this, just the idea._

_The character here is James, btw =) _

_Enjoy!_

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He didn't want to cut back on the money he spent on his little luxuries. But this big step he wanted to take, and his meagre savings only allowed him to choose…

Two weeks later saw him cutting down a large oak tree all on his own, there in the middle of the forest where all there was, were more trees and a cozy little creek. He made long planks out of the broad trunk, and soon his hands were full of blisters and splinters, he was thoroughly sweaty and his back ached hoplessly. But it all was worth it. At the end of the day, four solid walls stod right in place, and he cut down some large branches of his oak tree to make a window before he went to sleep, under his blanket of patchwork and starry ceiling.

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**_A/N: Well well! This is an experiment =) I hope you've enjoyed it, and if makes little sense now, wait till you read some more! It actually HAS a plot, believe me =) If you review it will do the story a lot of good =) Kisses!_**


	2. cut down

_Yes, it's kind of AUish this fic..._

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He'd lost track of how many days had passed since he'd stepped on concrete for the last time. He'd gotten used to this simplicity and wilderness faster than he'd thought he'd be able to, and he was thrilled. There was this wonderfully undescribable feeling about being his own man that just killed him. His soon return to the hassling city would mean cutting down on this state of sap-sugar-highness, and he was very, very reluctant to this.

He looked up at his sky and felt a pang of something in the pit of his stomach.

He hated being this romantic.

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_**A/N: Chaaan =D What do you think so far? Thanks to those lovely readers who commented :)**_


	3. cut off

_Don't own anything! Yes, there be rabbits =)_

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He was holding a knife to the bindings of the animal, he cut them off and the rabbit ran free, back into the womb of the loving forest. He was too weak, his determination was too feeble, he'd looked into its eyes, seen all his sins staring back at him, and poof, all his willpower had evaporated and the metal blade still glistened under the morning sun.

Which meant he'd be eating roots for the umpteenth time, oh man.

He took a look to his work of art, the lovely cottage he was creating with his very own two hands. At least that was a proof of his not being a total failure as a man. It looked really snug, there in that particular little nook of the woodlands, where the sun always managed to beam gently through the canopy of broad, perennial leaves.

He was cut off from his reverie of happy-ever-after thoughts by a soft scranching noise. The rabbit from before sleuthed in the shadow of some bushes.

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**_A/N: We're coming to the plot, we're coming close :) What do you think so far?_**


	4. go back

_Don't own anything! Yes, there be normal animals in this story, sorry if you find it weird. But that's why it's slightly AU, Meowth and Pikachu coexist with horses and rabbits and stuff :P_

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His idea of the hut went back to their first days together, when he was young, naïve and just as romantic as he'd always been, and she was young but ambitious and glamorous and well, _all_ that _he_ wasn't. But he'd got to know her well because fate had thrown them together, and he'd learnt to love her (secretly, of course, what was he to her after all?). He'd often dreamed of living somewhere quiet, just the two of them, and whenever things just weren't working out as planned for him, he went back to his mental creation of a charming hut in the forest he could call a rightful home. And she was always standing on its dorsill, waiting for him with one of her characteristic snide remarks.

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**_A/N: Plot! Thanks to the wonderful people that review =)_**


	5. go into

_These are actually two chapters, but as I didn't update in quite a long time, and the chappies ARE short, I thought I'd make kind of one out of two to compensate =)_

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He'd gone into that impious organisation just because he thought it'd be the best way to free himself from _everything_. _Okay_, he'd thought, _I'll become a criminal, have a fake name and do things that are morally reproachable, and yay! No one will ever find me and I can live life the way I want!_

But then, bam! He'd gone right into a system he hadn't expected, and the theorethical bump on his forehead still stung once and then, because damn, now that he was older and wiser (by force of experience) seriously, how _couldn't_ he see it coming! These present days, when he'd been all by himself in the forest, he'd been going into the issue… He'd been exploited, disminished, shunned as a dimwit and made to wear the most ridiculous _dresses_… Anyway, what was done was pointless to try to undo, and every mistake he'd made he was sure he'd think twice before making again.

.

.

That night, as he slept, the fire went out without his noticing. He woke up the next morning with a slight sorethroat, and his feet felt very cold. The dawn was barely cracking before him, he could see some faded cerulean patches of sky through the spring trees that roofed him.

He stretched, and looked at his pretty little work of art. He was _almost_ there, even the windows were done (he'd brought some glass panels when he'd first come to the woods to build his project). Those had been his biggest headache.

He got to work quite early that morning.

He felt lucky that he lived in a time when it was fairly easy to smuggle a nice equipment for a house into an ownerless woodland. He'd got his hands on a portable kitchen that had just gone out a couple of months ago (he could fold it and carry it in a suitcase! It was nuts!), and once he'd installed it, the first thing he did, was make himself some good, strong tea to celebrate that he was finally done.

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**_A/N: I know it's annoying that the chappies are short, but it's for the sake of the story. Usually some time passes between the chappies, and if I put them alltogether then that sense of time elapsing is lost..._**

**_I promise longer chapters briefly =)_**

**_Review and stay cool!_**

**_Lots of love, _**

**_Umi_**


	6. go out

He packed his scarce belongings.

With a last longing look to his dear cottage, that gleamed lovingly under the midday light that leaked from the canopy, he took his first step down the narrow lane that led back to the city.

He was going out to a faraway spot, and he knew not the date of his return. But he was sure that when he retuned, the place would look even more beautiful. If everything worked out as planned.

It had to work out…

.

.

.

_"Hey, where's Jessie? I thought you two were going out?"_

_Ash couldn't know, of course. James had just shaken his head, his throat tight. He'd sent the kid off with a wish of good luck for him and that abominable yellow creature that sat on his cap, that so many trouble had caused for them back in the good days when he could still watch her sleep, her sleeping bag close to his (so near and so damn far away…)_

_Ash had noticed James daze, naturally, and it was a kind of troubled daze the sixteen-year-old had never seen on his former arch-enemy. He should have left that moment, but didn't, and stayed looking at the young man until something made him aware that he was being observed._

_"Need a hand?" Ash asked, mildly concerned._

_James shook his head, a thoughtful air about him._

_"I'll do on my own," he said earnestly, and walked away. "Thank you, anyway," he called from a distance, waving his hand, much unlike him._

_If only Ash had known that Jessie was in jail…_

James remebered that day and sighed. It seemed to him it had been so long ago, but nay, it had only been the previous month or so, as he, for the first time ever, made his way to that fairytale-like forest. He didn't like to think that Jessie was all on her own inside a cold prison cell, hungry and lonely, with no one around to boss. He liked to think, to fool himself, that she'd broken away and was taking some kind of long, deserved vacation in a luxury island with (he shuddered) a handful of well-built, tanned men that fanned her and manicured her.

So he wasn't really setting out to rescue her, he was just going to go there to see with his very eyes that she wasn't there.

Oh, but he knew she _was_ there.

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**A/N: Sorry for the delay guys! I did fall behind with uploading this... long chappy to compensate! Reviews help me feed my man-eating plants, so if you don't review, then they'll eat me...! (imagine THAT, lol) **

**Up next: James sets out.**


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